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Welcome,

Design in Detail: Changing the Time Between Shots for the Sniper Rifle from 0.5 to 0.7 Seconds for Halo 3

Speaker(s)

Jaime Griesemer

Company Name(s)

Bungie

Track / Format

Game Design

Overview

Halo's multiplayer is balanced across over 1000 objects, more than 40 of which are unique weapons including the Sniper Rifle, which has over 200 functional fields including one that determines the minimum time between shots. In Halo 3, that time changed from 0.5 seconds to 0.7 seconds, changing less than 0.00001th of the overall game data, an immeasurably tiny balance tweak that should not have been noticeable, let alone significant.

This session will address this design decision in exhaustive detail. Why 0.7 seconds? Why that particular field? What processes and design principles lead to that change? How was it proposed, tested, and evaluated? What were its effects on the game's balance? How were those effects evaluated to the effects of the infinite number of other changes that could have been made? What were the external considerations, such as community reaction or target demographics, that influenced it? And what can be learned from that change to improve our ability to make changes in the future?